Here we go Again
by The Supreme Slurpinator
Summary: My first story. As the Sub-zero Heroes disembark from the ship after the events in Continental Drift, they not only step into a new land, but into a new life as well. Old friends return as the herd make new ones, and in the face of coming darkness, they need all the friends they can get. Soon the be a collaborative fanfic.
1. Chapter One

**Hello again,**

**Yah I know the first chapter/prologue was more of an authors note than a real chapter and that it was extremely short. I'm sorry about that but this chapter is much longer and it centers around Diego and Shira's first moments, I won't say on the island, but, uh, near the island. I'm going to say that the "island" is South America in the Pliocene. Of course the animals don't know that and they are just going to call it Ponagee Island or, as they explore more of it, just Ponagee. Another thing is that this story isn't going to have Point of View (POV) changes in the middle of a chapter. The POV will stay the same throughout the entire chapter but then possibly change in the next chapter. I will have whose POV it is at the beginning of of each chapter. Now enough with my rambling and lets get on with the story. In the future I will try to limit these to the end of the chapter (yah, right).  
**

**I don't own Ice Age**

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Chapter One

§ Shira §

Aftermath

As I felt the salty sea breeze ruffle the fur on my face, I shut my eyes, smiled, and relaxed. I realized that it was the first time I had ever done that on the deck of a ship. If you were gonna relax on a pirate ship you had to be asleep. For what seemed like the millionth time I realized what a good choice I made leaving the pirates.

Suddenly I heard a voice next to me say, "Watcha smiling for, kitty?" I jumped and looked around, relaxing once more and letting the smile slip back onto my face when I saw that it was Diego.

"Nothing," I said, "and don't call me kitty!" I spat as an afterthought and tackled him. Man, I hate that name, ever since Gutt used it to lure me to the edge of the water, just so he could rescue me, take me to that blasted ship and keep me there because I owed him a life debt.

Diego smiled back at me as I let him up, his eyes betraying the softness in him. He could have easily reversed the pin, and we both knew it, but he let me win to make me feel better about myself in a way that didn't involve hurting people. In fact, that was one of the things I liked most about him; his openness to helping others to make them feel better.

"Nothing must be awfully happy," he said as he rolled to his feet, still smiling."Alright, alright; I was thinking about how much better life is without Gutt," I said.

"Again?" Diego teased, his eyes turning from the ocean to my eyes and back again. "Hey look…"

"Land!" I heard someone shout to the entire boat. I turned around to see Manfred, or Manny, as everybody called him, pointing with his trunk at the brown, white, and green line that was slowly getting larger.

As we got closer, I realized that it was the place where Switchback Cove was. It wasn't so much an island, more like a continent. When I was with Gutt it took us a full year to reach the other end by boat, and the same down the other side. Sure we stopped an awful lot to plunder, but it was still a long trip.

When we finally made landfall, all the young mammoths and the molehog Louis went off to explore their new surroundings. The other animals of the community trickled off the ship in twos and threes. Manny decided that he wanted to see what Peaches was up to; Ellie went after him to make sure he didn't spoil anything. Granny hobbled off to look for more fruit to shred with her new teeth. Sid went after her to make sure she didn't get into any trouble but, knowing Sid, he would probably get into far worse trouble than anything Granny could stir up.

That left Diego and me. I looked sidelong at him, but he was too busy looking at our new home to notice. I decided to break the silence and ventured, "So, what do you think? Pretty nice, right?"

Diego turned to me and said, "You talk about it like you've been here before. Is that a safe assumption?"

"You didn't answer my question!" I growled, pushing him on the shoulder, intending to knock him over and pin him again.

Whoops. Instead of falling over, Diego slid across the ice and over the side of the ship. "Diego!" I shouted, and ran across the deck.

Whoops. As I ran toward the edge I realized three things. First and foremost, I didn't know how to swim, so any noble thoughts of jumping in and rescuing him instantly vanished. Second, I couldn't stop at the edge, even when I dug my claws in. Third and worst, there wasn't anybody around to fish us out.

So I assumed. As these thoughts went through my head, I slipped off the deck and plunged toward the icy water, yelling for help. The last thing I saw I hit the water was Diego paddling toward the shore, perfectly fine. A single hope slipped into my mind and I clung to it like a drowning animal to a log. I hoped that Diego was strong enough to swim for two. Then I hit the water and everything went black.

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**So whatd'ya think? Good, bad, exceedingly horrible? Review to let me know.**


	2. Chapter Two

**Hey I'm back again with the second chapter of Here we go Again and in this chappy the story starts to live up to it's T rating with minor violence and blood. Other than that it should be fine (I think).**

**One thing that I forgot to mention in previous author's notes is that I know that the prologue kinda clashes with some religion's idea of creationism and I'm sorry for that. All I have to say is that its just a story so I don't mean any disrespect that those religions. So, on with the story.**

**I don't own Ice Age (That's getting annoying)**

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Chapter Two

‡ Diego ‡

First Impressions

I had almost gotten to shore when I heard a yell and a splash. I turned around just in time to see Shira's limp body slip under the water. "Great, just great," I muttered to myself as I paddled back out toward where bubbles were still rising. First she pushes me overboard then falls in herself so that I have to fish her out. I dove beneath the surface, grabbed Shira, and hauled her toward the shore.

I dragged Shira's limp form up the beach and pumped her chest, expelling most of the seawater in her lungs. I collapsed beside of her and started to lick myself dry. I wasn't too worried about Shira, I had survived the fall, so I figured she had just been knocked out by the unexpected impact. Besides, this ought to teach her not to do something like that again. With a meal in both of us and some rest we should be just fine. Even now I felt the strength returning to my limbs.

Little did I know that two other pairs of eyes were watching us and their owners had very different ideas about how Shira and I were faring. As I finished cleaning the salt out of my fur I cast a worried glance at Shira. She had been asleep for quite awhile now. As I lay contemplating what to do next I heard a growl and a snarl. When I turned around I saw a pair of mean-looking male wolverines eyeing us. I snarled back, but I mentally sighed. In answer to your question, Shira, I thought, I'd say that this new home of ours is make some pretty lousy first impressions.

One of the wolverines charged and I sidestepped, slapping him away from Shira as he charged past. He skidded to a stop, just in time to be tackled by me and thrown into the water. His companion was more careful. Instead of rushing me head on, he circled me, trying to get me turned away from Shira. It was a good ploy on unsuspecting animals but, unfortunately for the wolverine, I was familiar with this trick.

It was at this time that, of course, Shira decided to wake up. She coughed, opened her eyes, and looked at me, perplexed, when she saw me standing over her, baring my fangs. The wolverine snarled again and charged because it knew, as well as we did, that two wolverines didn't stand a chance against two sabers, even sabers that were tired and waterlogged. I roared and jumped over Shira, tackling the creature and we rolled, the wolverine coming out on top. I tried using the same trick I used on the other wolverine, putting my feet on his stomach and pushing him off me, but he had seen me use that trick on his companion, so he dug his claws into my shoulders.

As the wolverine bared its teeth, I struggled desperately to get it off me, but to no avail. As my struggles began to weaken I realized that the wolverine looked strangely familiar. Before I had time to contemplate this however, a white blur bowled the wolverine off me, ripping its claws out of my shoulders. I rolled to my feet, ignoring the stabbing pain from where the wolverine's claws had been ripped out of my shoulders, and turned to where Shira, for it was Shira who had knocked the wolverine off me, was now fighting the wolverine. As I ran to help Shira I heard a low snarl behind me.

Drat. I had forgotten about the other wolverine, and that was not a good thing to do. As I turned around to face him he charged and I ran to intercept him. Just before I hit him I heard a whistling sound. Wait, whistling? Before that thought could register fully the wolverine yelped as he was bowled over by large ball of ice. A similar yelp behind me a few seconds later told me that the other wolverine had been hit as well.

I turned in the direction that the ice cannonball had come from and my stomach lurched.

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**Oooh, cliffhanger! I am mean, I know. Who shot the cannonball (I think you can guess) and why does the wolverine look familiar to Diego? Don't worry, you'll find out. Eventually. In the meantime please review. Well, I suppose it would be good if you read the story first, but you never know. Life is full of surprises like that.**


	3. Chapter Three

**Hallow again! Here it is , the much awaited CHAPTER THREE! OK, maybe not so awaited, but anyway, here it is.**

**Before that however, I know that Raz (yes she is in this chapter) is a Procoptodon, but for the ease of writing, and for spell check's sake i'm just going to call her a kangaroo.**

**Grrr, I just remembered something.**

**I don't own Ice Age.**

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Chapter Three

‡ Diego ‡

Old Friends…or Enemies?

A grayish-white and purple kangaroo was standing next to a large hollowed out log and an even larger elephant seal. "Oh boy," I muttered upon seeing them, as, in a strange twist of fate, the animals that were trying to kill us a few hours ago had now just saved our lives. The strange twosome were part of Gutt's crew and they might be here to avenge him. I mean, they might have been aiming at us and missed but I doubted it because of two reasons. First, as the dedicated gunner on Gutt's ship, she must have been an excellent shot, or else Gutt would've booted you appointed someone else; Second, its kinda hard to miss twice and both times hit the thing that your weren't aiming for. Keeping a wary eye on the duo, I ran over to Shira. She was bleeding profusely from a large bite mark on her left front leg and she was limping heavily. Some claw slashes were also dripping blood, but she was standing. I was bleeding from several similar slashes and, where the wolverine's claws had been pulled out of my shoulders, there were deep stab wounds. All in all we were pretty beat up.

"We've got company," I muttered to Shira as she got up.

I hadn't caught the pirates names on our sort stay on Gutt's ship, but I knew they were both trouble. At least the kangaroo was. The seal seemed more like a kid than the bloodthirsty pirate that you expected. However he must have been good at something or Gutt would have kicked him of the ship.

"Hold up there, mates," the kangaroo called, "We just want to talk, we mean you no harm."

I heard Shira mutter under her breath "That's not like Raz, to pass up a chance to fight."

I turned to her and asked "Why's that?"

Shira turned to me, her earlier anger forgotten, "Raz was always the fiercest one on the ship, save for Gutt, and never one to back down from a fight. In fact, she was usually itching for one. She was always the first one in, and the last one out. She was also the kind of person that you never really wanted to anger, for that tended to lead to a knife pressed up against your throat."

As I stood there digesting the information that Shira had given me I noticed that the blood welling from our wounds was subsiding already. As I gauged our odds of survival if another fight broke out, a black and white badger came scurrying out of the forest toward the strange duo, tucking a variety plants into a small leaf pouch slung over his shoulder.

"Let me guess," I said, "Another one of your old friends?"

Shira sighed and said, "Yes, that's Gupta, the old ship medic. He patched me up many times before, after fights and stuff like that. He's actually an extremely good medic, specializing in herbs and balms."

As we had been talking, the badger, now known as Gupta, had reached the two and was conferring in hushed tones with them. Well, more conferring with Raz, as the elephant seal, as I remember was to

After a few moments Raz straightened and called, "Gupta would like to, uh, 'make you well again' as he puts it. May we approach you two without getting our heads ripped off?"

Shira chuckled a little at the last bit, but then grimaced as she accidentally put weight on her injured leg. "I want to see the herbs you'll be using first and I want that cannon left there and pointed out to sea," Shira yelled back," Also, empty your pouch of weapons, Raz. If you agree to those conditions we won't fight you."

"Very well, Shira," Raz hollered, "You need not worry about weapons, I took the liberty of laying them in the sand over there." She pointed to a patch of sand that had knives, swords, spears, flails, and some other weapons I didn't even recognize arrayed in a neat pattern on the sand.

"Alright Raz," Shira called, "Come on over."

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**Ooh, another cliffie! Not so severe as the last one but still one anyway. Sorry this chapter took longer than the previous ones to update. I mean, its kinda hard to stay motivated when you don't get many reviews (Hint, Hint). I mean, 454 views, but only TWO reviews? Come on people! Anyway, a big shout out to arockerpop and The Shadow of Nothingness for those first reviews! You guys ROCK! For the rest of you, REVIEW PLEASE.**


	4. Chapter Four

**Well, hello again! Ahhhh! *dodges rotten tomato* I can honestly say that it has been a long time since I last updated and I'm sure you all are very mad at me, if the angry mob if anything to judge by. I sorry, OK! It has been a rather hectic summer, what with 4 or 5 trips and the beginning of school and whatnot. I know that's not really an excuse but that's the best I have. I did deliberately cut this chapter short cause I needed to get it up along with the author's note (ESPECIALLY the author's note) and I didn't want to get your hopes up for a new chappy and then have them squashed when you realized that it was only an authors note So, uh, if you can call off the mob I'll give you a proposition at the end of this, like I said before, extremely short chapter.**

**OOF!**

***gets pegged squarely in the face with another tomato***

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Chapter Four

§ Shira §

Relax, and Make Friends

I knew it was risky, letting Gupta practice his medical skills on us, as he could just as easily poison us as he could heal us. But it was a risk I was going to have to take, because Gupta was one of the best medics I knew. Not that I knew many medics, but I knew that to be a medic on a pirate ship meant you to be able to work wonders to keep the crew alive even when they had sustained horrendous injuries.

As Raz, Gupta, and Flynn approached, I sensed Diego stiffen beside me. He obviously was as edgy as I was. I nudged him and murmured, "Relax; if I know one thing, it's that they're not here to fight. Raz rarely, if ever empties her pouch, especially if there are potentially hostile animals in the area. Besides," I added on a slightly more humorous note, "If they were here to kill us we would already be dead. Raz never misses, and she can kick those cannonballs with enough force to kill. Other than that she's an excellent close-quarters fighter. Other than Gutt, most of the pirates were pretty harmless without their weapons. I was the first mate because my weapons couldn't be taken off.

Diego relaxed a little, but still remained rather tense.

"Even so," he said, "Don't you think a bit weird that the animals that were trying to kill us a few hours ago just saved our lives? Sounds more than a little fishy to me."

Further conversation was impossible, as the trio of pirates reached us and Gupta scurried forward, cracking his knuckles.

"All right, vich von of you is going first?" He asked, staring rather pointedly at me.

"I am," I replied, knowing full well that, A, Gupta trusted me not to rip his arms off a the touch of the stinging balms, and B, Diego would trust Gupta much more once he saw that he wasn't harming me.

"Alright, Shira, I vas planning on using these," Gupta said, neatly laying out a handful of leaves, bark, flowers, and mushrooms on the sand in front of us.

I began to scan the plants in front of us, carefully making sure that I had seen Gupta use them at least once before, when I, or one of the crew, was injured.

Most of the stuff I had seen before, but a one particular bunch looked unfamiliar to me, and I pointed them out.

"What are those?" I asked, pointing out a small bundle of red grasses that didn't look especially good for your health.

Gupta looked and smiled, a brotherly smile that I seen before, back in the old days on the ship when we had not a care in the world. "You vould not recognize zat, Shira, because it are very rare and I almost never use it. It's called blood grass and it comes from a place very far away to the north and east, and Gutt only took me zere vonce. Zis is all I have, although ve may not need it. It is used to keep ze patient from losing too much blood when too much has been lost already, but at a price. The user experiences a episode of hallucinations, meaning that, A, the user sometimes gets violent with even their family members, and that, B, the patient must be restrained.

"Now that I think about it," said Shira, "I remember Raz getting hurt, badly, you treating her, and then locking her in her room. I didn't get it at first, but now know why."

Gupta smiled again and then said "Well zen, let's have a look at you."

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**Okay! So the mob has drawn off, and I will reveal the surprise!**

**Drum roll please!**

**I am going to make the rest of the story a collaborative effort!**

**That's right, folks, I'm willing (and going to) team up with someone (or some-two) to get this sucker done. If you did help, you'd, A, get an insight on where I want this story to go, B, write the rest of the story with me, and, B, help ME stay motivated. So if you'd like to help me with this, please PM me, not leave a review saying so. Reviews are for, well, reviews and PMs are of course, private messages.**

**Cya, and hopefully I'll talk to you soon!**


	5. Author's Note

**Ok, I'm gonna be brief. If no one wants to help me on this, or even leave a review, it shows me that you don't really care about this story. If you want to see this story continued, ****LEAVE A REVIEW OR PM ME! **

**There, you've done it, you've pissed me off.**

**Seriously, though, I might not finish this story for a very long time, if ever, if I don't get help. So please, PLEASE, leave a review or PM me. Thanks.**

**The Supreme Slupinator**


	6. Another Author's Note

**Ok, I'm back and feeling loved, and as on totally amazing person called arockerpop has responded to my plea, I'm not discontinuing Here we go Again (yet). There is still room for one or two more co-writers to work with me and arockerpop. It will take us like, a week or so to get things figured out and then we should start writing. That's the plan anyway. So if you want to help PLEASE LET ME KNOW. Or you can continue to work on your own stories, that's fine to (I enjoy reading them).**

**Cya later,**

**The Supreme Slurpinator**


	7. Yet Another Author's Note

**Hey there,**

**I regret to inform you that there will be a temporary hold put on Here we go Again.**

**I know, I know you're all probably all like "Wha?! Didn't you ask for help and then say that you got it?"**

**The answer to that is yes, I did, but the commitment still isn't there. I just can't write that story right now with any regularity. However, I think the reason is is that I am currently writing another story (which I probably shouldn't be doing but doing anyway) called Outgunned. And to you pirate fans out there, this story has much more pirates in it than Here we go Again. But back to the original point, I'm going to be writing that instead of Here we go Again. I'm gonna try to at least get Outgunned halfway, or all the way done, or somewhere in between there before posting. Meaning, I'm gonna to be absent from the ranks of Ice Age Fanfiction for at least a couple months, if not longer. Probably longer. That don't mean that I'll be totally gone. You can still review or PM me if you want or if you have questions.**

**Cya,**

**The Supreme Slurpinator**


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